The Reluctant Bridegroom

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Don’t believe it,” Travers stated flatly. He turned to Sky. “Your people—they’re from Virginia, didn’t you tell me, Sky? What’ll they do if it comes to a fight?”

  “There’s some Winslows in Virginia—but there’s some in the North.” As he thought, the dark streak of fatalism in him knit his brow. “Hate to see it come. Be brothers against brothers all over this country. Families split right down the middle.”

  Clay said, “I’ll worry about that war when it gets here.” He took another drink, then added, “We got a war on right here, Sky. I’m set on winnin’ it before I take on another one.”

  “Think Sam will win?” Sky asked.

  “It’s up for grabs right now.” Travers took an ancient pipe out of his pocket, then filled and lit it. When it drew well, he looked around the room. “Here’s the bunch that wants an open town. The other side’s in church, I reckon. Always like that: the black and the white.”

  “You and Clay and me, Judd, we’re here,” Mike Stevens remarked pointedly. “Sky, too. Are we the sheep or the goats?”

  “We’re not saints,” Travers decided flatly. “But we’re better than Poole and Ingerson and their lot.”

  They bantered back and forth for two hours, and slowly the tension drained out of Winslow. The men around the table were not outdoorsmen, but there was a solidness about them, and Sky knew their word was good. They started a mild poker game and the time passed unnoticed. Their group made a little island in the saloon, and once Sky noticed Dandy Raimez staring at him from his place, but Sky paid no heed to it.

  He was not a drinking man, but the others were; and although he drank only one to their five or six, by the time Hill and Travers got up and left, Sky was feeling the effect of the alcohol. “No more for me, Mike,” he said when the other offered him the bottle.

  Stevens hiccoughed loudly. “I’d not be walking the streets alone if I were you, Sky.”

  “Why not, Mike?”

  “The word is out.” Stevens looked at the bar where Poole and Dandy were still engaged in talk. “Poole is going to pull out all the stops to stay in power. You made an enemy out of Ingerson when you faced him down—and Raimez, too. Way the talk goes, they’ll stop your clock if you stick your oar in.”

  “They’re welcome to try.”

  “What about your family if you go down? You thought about that?”

  “I won’t go down.”

  “You won’t go down.” Stevens got to his feet and rolled his eyes. “You’re tough, man—but anybody can die. Don’t get me wrong. I’m against Poole and his crowd all the way—but just be sure you count up the bill before you jump in.”

  He turned and walked out of the saloon without looking back, leaving Sky wondering. Stevens had not been so outspoken earlier, and his new belligerent attitude seemed to be a warning. Things are getting warmer, Sky thought. I must be crazy getting myself pulled into this thing.

  He rose to leave, and a voice said, “Hello, Sky. Got time for a drink?”

  He turned to find Rita standing just behind him; her presence was like a physical touch. She was wearing a red dress that set off her figure, and her smile brought back old memories that stirred him. “Guess I’d better not, Rita. I’m an old married man now.”

  “From what I hear, you’re not all that married, Sky,” she retorted with a crooked smile. “Sort of an in-name-only sort of thing, isn’t it?” She saw his jaw harden and said, “Dance with me, Sky. Please—I’ve got to tell you something.” She stepped closer and he had no choice. They moved to the small dance floor where half a dozen other men had claimed partners from the Silver Moon’s girls, and the two began to move across the floor.

  “Be careful, Sky,” she whispered, moving closer to speak in his ear.

  He didn’t like the way her perfume and the slight pressure of her body against his stirred old hungers—it made him dissatisfied with himself and angry at his weakness. “Be careful of what, Rita?”

  “I guess you know. I was hoping you wouldn’t be involved in this, but everyone knows that you’re Birdwell’s friend. And any friend of his is in Poole’s little book.”

  “I’m not running for office.”

  She pulled back so she could look at him and asked, “And if they go after Sam Birdwell with guns, what’ll you do, Sky?” She saw his reaction. “See? It’s not in you to run out on a friend. But you don’t have a chance, Sky. I’m Dandy’s girl now, and I hear things. And what I hear is that anyone in Birdwell’s camp will be killed—if that’s what it takes to keep ’em in line.”

  Sky knew all this, but he asked quietly, “Why are you telling me all this, Rita?”

  She didn’t answer at once, but just as the music stopped, she whispered, “I’m a fool for a man I like.” She turned and left, saying, “Get out of it, Sky!”

  He walked back to the table, laid down the money for his drinks, and left the saloon. When he got back to the church, the service was over and most of the crowd gone. Going inside, he found Rebekah talking to Edith. “Ready to go?”

  Both of the women were looking at him in a peculiar way. “I’ll get the children,” Rebekah replied quietly.

  Edith waited until she left. “You’re a fool, Sky.”

  “What?” He was taken off guard by her harsh words. “What’s the matter?”

  “You come into this place for your wife, half drunk, smelling of cheap perfume, and with this—” She reached out and pulled a long black hair from his shirt collar. She glared at him. “If you have to go to that woman, you could at least clean yourself up before Rebekah sees you!”

  The attack was so unexpected and the anger in her face so strong that he could not think of an answer. Turning, he left the building and waited until Rebekah came out carrying the baby. Joe was with her, holding Timmy. Sky got them inside the wagon and started for home. Rebekah said nothing, and soon the children were all asleep—Joe bundled up with Timmy on the floor and the baby held close in her mother’s arms. The lights of the town faded as they moved into the thin timber. A quarter moon threw faint silver beams on the snow, and the horses’ hooves made squashy noises in the half-melted slush.

  Sky had rarely felt so uncomfortable. Edith’s words burned in his mind, and even if he knew that his intentions had not been bad—at least as far as Rita was concerned—he felt guilty. Winslow looked at Rebekah. Her face was sharply outlined by the faint moonlight, and he admired the classic simplicity of her face, though he could not see her expression. After several miles of silence he could not stand it anymore, and made his apology.

  “I shouldn’t have come into the church after drinking, Rebekah.” He wanted to say more, to explain to her what had happened, but her silence built a wall, and he could not go on.

  She thinks I’ve been with Rita, he thought, and for a long time he tried to find some way to tell her what had happened, but he couldn’t. Not only that, the memory of how Rita had stirred his longings grated against his conscience. Finally he settled down to the long ride home.

  Rebekah was waiting for him to speak again, and when he didn’t, she steeled herself against the mounting silence. One word from him, and she would have turned at once with understanding—but he did not say that word. He helped her get the children inside, hoping at the last moment to find a word to ease the situation, but nothing came.

  They went to bed without speaking to each other, and long afterward, Sky heard the mournful cry of a timber wolf far off in the woods. The sound stirred him deeply. He lay there thinking of what the days ahead held, but found nothing to soften the blank wall of despair that shut him in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHRISTMAS GIFT

  A week of false spring freed the frozen brooks and turned the crisp snow into slush, but Winslow knew winter still lurked up in the Cascades. He rose early one morning and said to Rebekah, “I’m going over to the lower pasture and get some of that big oak that fell. Be back before noon.”

  “All right.”

  The shortnes
s of her reply struck him, but he hitched the team to a sled and drove down the slope that led to a bottom section. For two hours he hacked at the tough white oak that had fallen the previous year in a storm, loading the sections on the sled. The sun came up, heating the small meadow, and he soon took off his coat.

  The physical work was pleasant, for he could expend his energy against the wood, see the pile grow on the sled, and take satisfaction in the small accomplishment. He enjoyed the simplicity of the work as well because he had been struggling against things that had no simple answers. Since the night they had returned from Oregon City, Rebekah had been different.

  Their marriage was not the usual, he realized. From the start her manner had been subdued, yet he had become aware of part of her that was waiting—for what, he wasn’t quite certain. But he recognized it, and he’d had something of the same expectancy in his own mind. Despite his talk of her being “just a housekeeper,” somehow there had been a knowledge that such a relationship could not go on forever. More than once they had looked at each other, and a keen awareness had leaped out in a way that alerted them to the fact that they were more than just master and servant.

  But that had passed—at least from Rebekah. She cooked, sewed, and maintained the house, but kept to herself, speaking for the most part only of necessary things, the ordinary affairs of keeping house.

  Sky had been aware, too, of Joe’s growing resentment for Rebekah, but had not found any way to curb it. Both he and Joe enjoyed Timmy and Mary. It was the one thing that had gone right with their arrangement. Every night Sky would come in from work and spend time playing simple games with Timmy, and often he would hold Mary, rocking her to sleep or marveling at the finely made features that were beginning to take form. Joe did much the same, and his interest in the children made Sky feel better—but he was aware that both he and Joe were shut out from Rebekah more firmly than ever.

  Now as he pushed the one-man crosscut saw through the stubborn oak, his head was filled with thoughts; and when a voice spoke right at his side, he almost panicked. His years in the mountains with danger constantly around had given him catlike reactions, but the years spent away had blunted those. Even as he whirled, throwing himself to his left where his rifle lay propped too far away against a stump, he knew he was too late.

  “Whoa, Hoss! Don’t get your dander up!”

  Sky blinked at the figure who had appeared from nowhere. Recognizing the man, he whooped loudly and threw himself forward, beating the man on the back. “Jim O’Malley!” he shouted. “Blast you! I oughta shoot you for sneaking up on me like that!”

  A smile broke across the broad lips of the visitor. “I knowed you’d go to pot if you left the mountains! Good thing I wasn’t a Cheyenne buck, ain’t it now?”

  “Jim! Where in the world did you spring from?”

  “Brought my furs to Oregon City, Sky. Thought the price might be better—and anyway, your pa told me you was here, so I thought we might split a bottle and see which one of us could tell the biggest lies.”

  Jim O’Malley was two inches taller than Winslow and much thicker through the body. He was wearing a worn set of buckskins, which seemed molded to his body, and a pair of handmade elkskin boots. A coonskin cap failed to hide the reddish thatch of hair that grew down past his ears, and he held a Hawken rifle as if it were an extension of his body. He had steel-gray eyes, deep set and watchful, and his face was heavy and durable like the rest of him. The two men were about the same age, and had spent several years trapping together on the upper Missouri.

  “Jim! By the Lord, it’s good to see you!” Sky exclaimed, slapping his thighs and crowing with pleasure. “Let’s go to the house and get something to eat.”

  “Stopped by and met your wife and kids,” O’Malley said. “You sure done yourself proud, Sky! Don’t see how an ornery coon like you could talk a fine lady like that into marryin’ the likes of you.”

  Sky looked for something in the man’s face that would imply a hidden meaning, but he saw only the fine humor characteristic of O’Malley. He hesitated, then said, “It’s kind of a funny thing, Jim. I’ll tell you about how we got married while we walk back.”

  But it was not as easy as he had expected. As he tried to put into words the history of his marriage, it sounded artificial even to his own ears. He was also aware of the sidelong glances O’Malley gave him as they made their way back to the house.

  Finally the trapper said, “Well, I knew that Irene cut the heart out of you, Sky. I didn’t know she was dead until your folks told me a year back when I went by the Mission to get word about you.”

  “Joe needs a mother, Jim. I went east to hire a housekeeper and teacher—but Rebekah was in a fix, so I thought we could work out something that would help us both.”

  “How’s it workin’ out?” O’Malley asked.

  Sky reflected for a moment. “Well, it’s hard, Jim. I’ve had some doubts—and I reckon she has, too.” Soon he grew tired of talking about his own problems, so he changed the subject. “What’s on your ticket, Jim?”

  “Why, you’re looking at a man with a hitch to settle down, Sky,” O’Malley smiled. “I met up with old Charlie Dugan last month—you remember Charlie?”

  “Sure. Thought he was dead, though.”

  “Oughta been. He’s only about fifty, but he looks seventy, Sky! Living alone in a little hut outside Fort Laramie—plumb wore out! And I can remember when Charlie Dugan could walk the legs off any man in the mountains!” O’Malley shook his head. “I decided right then to sell out, get married, and raise myself a dozen kids!”

  Sky laughed loudly. “Can’t see you in that light, Jim. And you’ve come to a mighty poor place for finding a bride. Just told you how I had to bring a bunch clear from the East.”

  O’Malley waved his hand. “That’s no problem for an Irishman,” he announced grandly. “I’ve got a pocketful of money, and with my charm and good looks, finding a woman will be a small matter.”

  “Well, good luck,” Sky replied, thinking that the man was telling the truth. Jim O’Malley was the finest looking man he’d ever seen; and in their years together, it was always the Irishman who managed to get the inside track on every pretty girl that appeared.

  When they got back to the house, Joe was waiting on the doorstep, his eyes taking in the big man, who won his heart by saying, “Joe, is it? Well, now, I’ve got an idea that the two of us might get along. You got a rifle?”

  “Sure!”

  “Well, I hope to teach you how to shoot it,” O’Malley commented with a grin at Sky. “I remember once your pa and I was penned in by a Crow war party, and he said right there, ‘Mr. O’Malley, if we get out of this thing alive, I’m going to take shooting lessons from you.’ ”

  “Gosh! Is that right, Pa?”

  “Sure is,” Sky smiled. “Guess you’re looking at just about the best shot in the West—with a rifle, that is.”

  “Now your pa is being too modest, Joe,” O’Malley protested. “I can maybe shade him with a Hawken, but there’s no man who could come close to Sky Winslow with a pistol.”

  “We can brag on each other later, Jim,” Sky grinned. “You’re stayin’ with us, so get your plunder unloaded.” He hesitated as Rebekah stepped outside. “You say you’ve met my wife?”

  “Yes.” O’Malley smiled and pulled his hat off. His teeth gleamed white against his bronze skin, and there was a gentlemanly grace in his manner as he bowed. “Don’t want to be any trouble to you, Mrs. Winslow.”

  “Why—you’ll be most welcome, Mr. O’Malley.” Rebekah’s heart thumped, for the presence of the man was strong. His gray eyes danced with life, and she felt his admiration. “We’re a little short on meat, Sky—”

  “Why, I’m your man, Mrs. Winslow—and by the way, Mr. O’Malley, he’s my pa. You can just call me Jim.” He put a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Why don’t you and me go out and try to find a buck, Joe?”

  “Can I, Pa?” Joe begged.

  “Take Jim dow
n to Big Owl Creek, Joe. Deer been feeding in the river bottom there. Try to get a nice tender doe.”

  O’Malley and Joe left at once, the man holding the boy’s attention by some tall tale. As Sky watched them go, he said, “Sure is good to see Jim.”

  Rebekah’s mind was on the problems of taking in an extra guest. “I suppose he’ll sleep with you and Joe,” she said, a faint flush rising in her cheeks as she turned to enter the house. “I’ll find some extra blankets.” She hurriedly found two thick blankets, and took them up to the loft, which was built much more solidly than in most cabins. The ceiling sloped up so steeply that there was plenty of room for the two single beds that Sky had built for himself and Joe, as well as a table and two chairs. After she had put the blankets on one of the beds, she was about to go when she saw a sheet of paper under the table and bent to pick it up. Thinking it was one of Joe’s exercises, she held it to the light and read a few lines before she realized it was a letter Sky had been working on. Her face paled and she tore her eyes from the page. Looking down, she saw several other sheets on the table. She put the sheet she had retrieved with the others, then went downstairs. The few lines she had read fixed in her memory:

  I should have written you before, but I had hoped things would get better. I told you of my marriage in my last letter. It was for Joe’s sake that I married Rebekah, but I’ve come to realize that is not enough to make a marriage. Joe has taken a dislike to her, and the whole thing has been difficult for everyone. If I had only hired her it would be much simpler, but I’ve married her . . .

  Rebekah’s eyes burned so badly that she had trouble finding her way down from the loft. When Sky came in a few minutes later, he saw her pale face and asked, “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You look like you don’t feel well. Not getting sick, are you?”